Men of Magic
by Citiesofowls
Summary: A fusion of Men of Iron, Howard Pyle's classic story of chivalry and romance. Harry Potter, his father having been killed through the machinations of the evil King Voldemort, must fight for his family's honor. He goes to Hogwarts Castle to become a knight, so he may fight in the service of the rightful King, Dumbledore, and revenge himself on Lord Voldemort and his many followers.
1. Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The year 1400 opened with more than usual peacefulness in England. Only a few months before, Lord Voldemort—weak, wicked, and treacherous—had been overthrown, and Dumbledore declared King in his stead. But it was only a seeming peacefulness, lasting but for a little while; for though King Dumbledore proved himself a just and a merciful man—as justice and mercy went with the men of iron of those days—and though he did not care to shed blood needlessly, there were many noble families who had been benefited by Lord Voldemort during his reign, and who had lost somewhat of their power and prestige from the coming in of the new King.

Among these were a number of great lords—the Patriarchs of the Avery, Goyle, and Crabbe families, the Earl of Wiltshire, Lucius Malfoy, and others—who had been degraded to their former titles and estates, from which Lord Voldemort had lifted them. These and others brewed a secret plot to take King Dumbledore's life, which plot might have succeeded had not one of their own number betrayed them.

Their plan had been to fall upon the King and his adherents, and to massacre them during a great tournament, to be held at Hogwarts. But Dumbledore did not appear at the lists; whereupon, knowing that he had been lodging at Windsor with only a few attendants, the conspirators marched thither against him. In the mean time Dumbledore had been warned of the plot, so that, instead of finding him in the royal castle, they discovered through their scouts that he had hurried to London, whence he was even then marching against them at the head of a considerable army. So nothing was left them but flight. Some betook themselves one way, some another; some sought sanctuary here, some there; but one and another, they were all of them caught and imprisoned.

Lord Rodolphus Lestrange, along with his brother Rabastan and mad wife Bellatrix, was sent to Azkaban; Lord Augustus Rookwood—one time Unspeakable for the Ministry—and Sir Walden Macnair met the same fate; Lord Regulus Black—named heir to the Black family after the defection of his brother Sirius—disappeared shortly before Lord Voldemort's fall, and was thought to be killed by a light family. Those few who found friends faithful and bold enough to afford them shelter, dragged those friends down in their own ruin.

Just such a case was that of the godfather of the boy hero of this story, the knight Sirius Black, single surviving member of the Black family, who, though having no part in the dark plot, suffered through it ruin, utter and complete.

He had been a friend to untrustworthy men and born to a dark family, and perhaps it was this, as much and more than his roundabout connection with the plot, that brought upon him the punishment he suffered.


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Harry Potter was but eight years of age at that time, and it was only afterwards, and when he grew old enough to know more of the ins and outs of the matter, that he could remember by bits and pieces the things that afterwards happened; how one evening a knight came clattering into the court-yard upon a horse, red-nostrilled and smeared with the sweat and foam of a desperate ride—Sir Sirius Black, a dear friend of his father, Lord Potter.

Even though so young, Harry knew that something very serious had happened to make Sir Sirius so pale and haggard, and he dimly remembered leaning against the knight's iron-covered knees, looking up into his gloomy face, and asking him if he was sick to look so strange. Thereupon those who had been too troubled before to notice him, bethought themselves of him, and sent him to bed, rebellious at having to go so early.

He remembered how the next hour, looking out of a window high up under the eaves, he saw a great troop of horsemen come riding into the courtyard beneath, where a powdering of snow had whitened everything, and of how the leader, a familiar knight clad in black armor, dismounted and entered the great hall door-way below, followed by several of the band.

He remembered how some of the castle women were standing in a frightened group upon the landing of the stairs, talking together in low voices about a matter he did not understand, excepting that the armed men who had ridden into the courtyard wore the mark of Lord Voldemort, though leading them had been a friend of Lord Potter. None of the women paid any attention to him; so, shunning their notice, he ran off down the winding stairs, expecting every moment to be called back again by some one of them.

A crowd of castle people, all very serious and quiet, were gathered in the hall, where a number of strange men-at-arms lounged upon the benches, while two wizards in dark robes and white masks stood guarding the great door, the butts of their wands resting upon the ground, and the magical staves crossed, barring the door-way.

In the anteroom was the knight in black armor whom Harry had seen from the window. He was sitting at the table, his great helmet lying upon the bench beside him, and a quart beaker of butterbeer at his elbow. A clerk sat at the other end of the same table, with inkwell in one hand and quill in the other, and a parchment spread in front of him.

Lady Potter, the lady of the noble house, stood before the knight, who every now and then put to her a question, which the other would answer, and the clerk write the answer down upon the parchment.

His father stood with his back to the fireplace, looking down upon the floor with a great scowl, his brows drawn moodily together, and the scar of the great wound that he had received in a skirmish against a group of death eaters—a wound of branching lines like lightning—showing red across his forehead, as it always did when he was angered or troubled.

There was something about it all that frightened Harry, who crept to his father's side, and slid his little hand into the palm that hung limp and inert. In answer to the touch, his father grasped the hand tightly, but did not seem otherwise to notice that he was there. Neither did the black knight pay any attention to him, but continued putting his questions to Lady Potter.

Then, suddenly, there was a commotion in the hall without, loud voices, and a hurrying here and there. The black knight half arose, grasping a heavy wand of chestnut wood that lay upon the bench beside him, and the next moment Sir Sirius Black, as pale as death, ran into the antechamber. "Run, James, he meanest to kill Harry!"

Harry's father, lacking a wand, thrust him towards the door. "I yield me to my Lord's grace and mercy, only spare my son," said he to the black knight, and they were the last words he ever uttered in this world.

The black knight shouted out some words of command, and swinging up the tall wand in his hand, strode forward clanking towards Lord Potter, who raised his arm as though to shield himself from the blow. Two or three of those who stood in the hall without came running into the room with drawn swords and wands, and little Harry, crying out with terror, hid his face in his godfather's long robe.

The next instant came the sound of a blow and of a groan, then another blow and the sound of one falling upon the ground. Then came the sound of a shouted curse, and in the midst Sir Sirius crying, in a dreadful voice, "Thou traitor! thou coward! thou murderer!"

Lady Potter snatched Harry away from his godfather, and bore him out of the room in spite of his screams and struggles, and he remembered just one instant's sight of his father lying still and silent upon his face, and of the black knight standing above him, with the terrible wand in his hand and a dreadful light in his eyes.

It was that night that Lady Potter and Sir Sirius and little Harry, together with three of the more faithful of their people, left the castle.

His memory of past things held a picture for Harry of old Rubeus Hagrid standing over him in the silence of midnight with a lighted lamp in his hand, and with it a recollection of being bidden to hush when he would have spoken, and of being dressed by one of the house elves, bewildered with sleep, shuddering and chattering with cold.

He remembered being wrapped in the sheepskin that lay at the foot of his bed, and of being carried in Hagrid's arms down the silent darkness of the winding stair-way, with the great black giant shadows swaying and flickering upon the stone wall as the dull flame of the lamp swayed and flickered in the cold breathing of the night air.

Below were his mother and godfather and two or three others. A stranger stood warming his hands at a newly-made fire, and little Harry, as he peeped from out the warm sheepskin, saw that he was in riding-boots and was covered with mud. He did not know till long years afterwards that the stranger was a messenger sent by a friend at King Dumbledore's court, bidding his family fly for safety.

They who stood there by the red blaze of the fire were all very still, talking in whispers and walking on tiptoes, and Harry's mother hugged him in her arms, sheepskin and all, kissing him, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, and whispering to him, as though he could understand their trouble, that they were about to leave their home forever.

Then Hagrid carried him out into the strangeness of the winter midnight.

Outside, beyond the frozen moat, where the willows, stood stark and stiff in their winter nakedness, was a group of dark figures waiting for them with horses. In the pallid moonlight Harry recognized the well-known face of Remus Lupin, the Prior of St. Mary's.

After that came a long ride through that silent night upon the saddle-bow in front of Hagrid; then a deep, heavy sleep, that fell upon him in spite of the galloping of the horses.

When next he woke the sun was shining, and his home and his whole life were changed.


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

From the time the family escaped from Potter Castle that midwinter night to the time Harry was sixteen years old he knew nothing of the great world beyond Ottery St. Mary. A fair was held twice in a twelvemonth at the market-town of Hogsmeade, and three times in the seven years old Rubeus Hagrid took the lad to see the sights at that place. Beyond these three glimpses of the outer world he lived almost as secluded a life as one of the neighboring monks of St. Mary's Priory.

Ottery St. Mary, their new home, was different enough from Potter Castle, the former baronial seat of Lord Potter. It was a long, low, straw-thatched farm-house, once, when the church lands were divided into two holdings, one of the bailiff's houses. All around were the fruitful farms of the priory, tilled by well-to-do tenant holders, and rich with fields of waving grain, and meadow-lands where sheep and cattle grazed in flocks and herds; for in those days the church lands were under church rule, and were governed by church laws, and there, when war and famine and waste and sloth blighted the outside world, harvests flourished and were gathered, and sheep were sheared and cows were milked in peace and quietness.

The Prior of St. Mary's owed much if not all of the church's prosperity to the late Lord Potter, and now he was paying it back with a haven of refuge from the ruin that his former patron had brought upon himself by giving confidence to his once friend the black knight.

I fancy that most boys do not love the grinding of school life—the lessons to be conned, the close application during study hours. It is not often pleasant to brisk, lively lads to be so cooped up. I wonder what the boys of to-day would have thought of Harry's training. With him that training was not only of magic and the mind, but of the body as well, and for seven years it was almost unremitting. "Thou hast thine own way to make in the world, sirrah," his godfather said more than once when the boy complained of the grinding hardness of his life, and to make one's way in those days meant a thousand times more than it does now; it meant not only a heart to feel and a brain to think, but a hand quick and strong to strike in battle, and a body tough to endure the blows and hexes in return. And so it was that Harry's body as well as his mind had to be trained to meet the needs of the dark age in which he lived.

Every morning, winter or summer, rain or shine he tramped away six long miles to the priory school, and in the evenings his mother taught him French.

Harry, being prejudiced in the school of thought of his day, rebelled not a little at that last branch of his studies. "Why must I learn that vile tongue?" said he.

"Call it not vile," said the fierce Lady, grimly; "belike, when thou art grown a man, thou'lt have to seek thy fortune in France land, for England is haply no place for such as be of Potter blood or Black clan." And in after-years, true to his mother's prediction, the "vile tongue" served him well.

As for his physical training, that pretty well filled up the hours between his morning studies at the monastery and his evening studies at home. Then it was that old Hagrid took him in hand, than whom none could be better fitted to shape his young body to strength and his hands to skill in arms. The old gamekeeper had served with Lord Potter's father under the Black Prince both in France and Spain, and in long years of war had gained a practical knowledge of arms that few could surpass. Besides the use of the broadsword, the short sword, and the quarter-staff (which today might be called a wand), he taught Harry to shoot so skilfully with the long-bow and the cross-bow that not a lad in the country-side was his match at the village butts. Attack and defence with the lance, and throwing the knife and dagger were also part of his training.

Then, in addition to this more regular part of his physical training, Harry was taught in another branch not so often included in the military education of the day—the art of wandless magic. It happened that a fellow lived in Ottery St. Mary village, by name Flitwick, who was the greatest magical dueler in the country-side, and had worn the champion belt for three years. Every Sunday afternoon, in fair weather, he came to teach Harry the art, and being wonderfully adept in magical feats, he soon grew so quick and active and that he could duel any lad under twenty years of age living within a range of five miles, without having yet acquired a wand of his own.

"It is main ungentle armscraft that he learneth," said Sir Sirius one day to Prior Lupin. "Saving only the broadsword, the dagger, and the lance, there is but little that a gentleman of his strain may use without a wand."

"Neth'less, my dear Sir," said Prior Lupin. "He gaineth quickness and strength, and if he hath true blood in his veins he will acquire knightly arts shrewdly quick when the time cometh to learn them. Perhaps his wandless magic shall serve him well in some battle to come."

But hard and grinding as Harry's life was, it was not entirely without pleasures. There were many boys living in Ottery St. Mary and the village; sons of muggle families, to be sure, but, nevertheless, lads of his own age, and that, after all, is the main requirement for friendship in boyhood's world. Then there was the river to bathe in; there were the hills and valleys to roam over, and the wold and woodland, with their wealth of nuts and birds'-nests and what not of boyhood's treasures.

Once he gained a triumph that for many a day was very sweet under the tongue of his memory. As was said before, he had been three times to the market-town at fair-time, and upon the last of these occasions he had fought a bout of quarterstaff with a young magical fellow of twenty, and had been the conqueror. He was then only a little over fourteen years old.

Old Hagrid, who had gone with him to the fair, had met some cronies of his own, with whom he had sat gossiping in the ale-booth, leaving Harry for the nonce to shift for himself. By-and-by the old man had noticed a crowd gathered at one part of the fair-ground, and, snuffing a fight, had gone running, ale-pot in hand. Then, peering easily over the shoulders of the crowd, he had seen his young master, bearing a broken bough but no true wand, fighting like a proper wizard with a fellow a head taller than himself. Hagrid was about to force his way through the crowd and drag them asunder, but a second look had showed his practised eye that Harry was not only holding his own, but was in the way of winning the victory, despite his lack of a wand. So he had stood with the others looking on, withholding himself from any interference and whatever upbraiding might be necessary until the duel had been brought to a triumphant close. Lady Potter never heard directly of the redoubtable affair, but old Hagrid was not so silent with the common folk of Ottery St. Mary, and so no doubt the mother had some inkling of what had happened. It was shortly after this notable event that Harry was formally initiated into squirehood. His mother and godfather (in place of his father, as was the custom), stood sponsors for him. By them, each bearing a lighted taper, he was escorted to the altar. It was at St. Mary's Priory, and Prior Lupin blessed the holly wand and pressed it into the lad's hands. No one was present but the four, and when the good Prior had given the benediction and had signed the cross upon his forehead, Harry's mother stooped and kissed his brow just where the priest's finger had drawn the holy sign. Her eyes brimmed bright with tears as she did so. Poor lady! perhaps she only then and for the first time realized how big her fledgling was growing for his nest. Henceforth Harry had the right to carry a wand.

Harry had ended his fifteenth year. He was a bonny lad, with brown face, curling hair, a square, strong chin, and a pair of merry laughing green eyes; his shoulders were not broad and his chest was not thick of girth, but his muscles and thews were as tough as oak.

The day upon which he was sixteen years old, as he came whistling home from the monastery school he was met by Hagrid.

"Master Harry," said the old man, with a snuffle in his voice—"Master Harry, thy mother would see thee in her chamber, and bade me send thee to her as soon as thou didst come home. Oh, Master Harry, I fear me that belike thou art going to leave home to-morrow day."

Harry stopped short. "To leave home!" he cried.

"Aye," said old Hagrid, "belike thou goest to some grand castle to live there, and be a page there and what not, and then, haply, a gentleman-at-arms in some great lord's pay."

"What coil is this about castles and lords and gentlemen-at-arms?" said Harry. "What talkest thou of, Hagrid? Art thou jesting?"

"Nay," said Hagrid, "I am not jesting. But go to thy mother, and then thou wilt presently know all. Only this I do say, that it is like thou leavest us to-morrow day."

And so it was as Hagrid had said; Harry was to leave home the very next morning. He found his mother and godfather and Prior Lupin together, waiting for his coming.

"We three have been talking it over this morning," said his mother, "and so think each one that the time hath come for thee to quit this poor home of ours. An thou stay here ten years longer, thou'lt be no more fit to go then than now. To-morrow I will give thee a letter to my kinsman, the Earl of Prince. He has thriven in these days and I have fallen away, but time was that he and I were true sworn companions, and plighted together in friendship never to be sundered. Methinks, as I remember him, he will abide by his plighted troth, and will give thee his aid to rise in the world. So, as I said, to-morrow morning thou shalt set forth with Hagrid, and shall go to Castle Hogwarts, and there deliver this letter which prayeth him to give thee a place in his household. Thou mayst have this afternoon to thyself to make read such things as thou shalt take with thee. And bid me Hagrid to take the gray horse to the village and have it shod."

Prior Lupin had been standing looking out of the window. As Lady Potter ended he turned.

"And, Harry," said he, "thou wilt need some money, so I will give thee as a loan forty galleons, which some day thou mayst return to me an thou wilt. For this know, Harry, a man cannot do in the world without money. Thy godfather hath it ready for thee in the chest, and will give it thee to-morrow ere thou goest."

Lady Potter had the grim strength of motherhood's hard sense to upbear her in sending her son into the world, but the poor godfather had nothing of that to uphold him. No doubt it was as hard then as it is now for the parent to see the nestling thrust from the nest to shift for itself. What tears were shed, what words of love were spoken to the only man-child, none but the three caretakers and the son ever knew.

The next morning Harry and the old gamekeeper rode away, and no doubt to the boy himself the dark shadows of leave-taking were lost in the golden light of hope as he rode out into the great world to seek his fortune.


	4. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

What Harry remembered of Potter Castle loomed great and grand and big, as things do in the memory of childhood, but even memory could not make Potter Castle the equal of Hogwarts, when, as he and Hagrid rode out of Hogsmeade across the great, rude stone bridge that spanned the river, he first saw, rising above the crowns of the trees, those huge hoary walls, and the steep roofs and chimneys clustered thickly together, like the roofs and chimneys of a town.

The castle was built upon a plateau-like rise of ground, which was enclosed by the outer wall. It was surrounded on three sides by a loop-like bend of the river, and on the fourth was protected by a deep, broad, artificial moat, almost as wide as the stream from which it was fed. The road from the town wound for a little distance along by the edge of this moat. As Harry and the old gamekeeper galloped by, with the answering echo of their horses' hoof-beats rattling back from the smooth stone face of the walls, the lad looked up, wondering at the height and strength of the great ancient fortress. In his air-castle building Harry had pictured the Earl receiving him as the son of his one-time comrade in arms—receiving him, perhaps, with somewhat of the rustic warmth that he knew at Ottery St. Mary; but now, as he stared at those massive walls from below, and realized his own insignificance and the greatness of this great Earl, he felt the first keen, helpless ache of homesickness shoot through his breast, and his heart yearned for Ottery St. Mary again.

Then they thundered across the bridge that spanned the moat, and through the dark shadows of the great gaping gate-way, and Hagrid, bidding him stay for a moment, rode forward to bespeak the gate-keeper.

The gate-keeper gave the two in charge of one of the men-at-arms who were lounging upon a bench in the archway, who in turn gave them into the care of one of the house-servants in the outer court-yard. So, having been passed from one to another, and having answered many questions, Harry in due time found himself in the outer waiting-room sitting beside Hagrid upon a wooden bench that stood along the wall under the great arch of a glazed window.

For a while the poor country lad sat stupidly bewildered. He was aware of people coming and going; he was aware of talk and laughter sounding around him; but he thought of nothing but his aching homesickness and the oppression of his utter littleness in the busy life of this great castle.

Meantime old Hagrid was staring about him with huge interest, every now and then nudging his young master, calling his attention now to this and now to that, until at last the lad began to awaken somewhat from his despondency to the things around. Besides those servants and others who came and went, and a knot of six or eight men-at-arms with wands and clubs, who stood at the farther door-way talking together in low tones, now and then broken by a stifled laugh, was a group of four young squires, who lounged upon a bench beside a door-way hidden by an arras, and upon them Harry's eyes lit with a sudden interest. Three of the four were about his own age, one was a year or two older, and all four were dressed in the black-and-yellow uniform of the house of Hogwarts.

Harry plucked the gamekeeper by the sleeve. "Be they squires, Hagrid?" said he, nodding towards the door.

"Eh?" said Hagrid. "Aye; they be squires."

"And will my station be with them?" asked the boy.

"Aye; an the Earl take thee to service, thou'lt haply be taken as squire."

Harry stared at them, and then of a sudden was aware that the young men were talking of him. He knew it by the way they eyed him askance, and spoke now and then in one another's ears. One of the four, a gay young fellow, with mussed red hair and a freckl'd visage, said a few words, the others gave a laugh, and poor Harry, knowing how ungainly he must seem to them, felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and shyly turned his head.

Suddenly, as though stirred by an impulse, the same lad who had just created the laugh arose from the bench, and came directly across the room to where Harry and the gamekeeper sat.

"Give thee good-den," said he. "What be'st thy name and whence comest thou, an I may make bold so to ask?"

"My name is Harry Potter," said Harry; "and I come from Ottery St. Mary bearing a letter to my Lord."

"Never did I hear of Ottery St. Mary," said the squire. "But what seekest here, if so be I may ask that much?"

"I come seeking service," said Harry, "and would enter as an esquire such as ye be in my Lord's household."

Harry's new acquaintance grinned. "Thou'lt make a droll squire to wait in a Lord's household," said he. "Hast ever been in such service?"

"Nay," said Harry, "I have only been at school, and learned Latin and French and what not. But Rubeus Hagrid here hath taught me use of arms."

The young squire laughed outright. "By Merlin, thy talk doth tickle me, friend Harry," said he. "Think'st thou such matters will gain thee footing here? But stay! Thou didst say anon that thou hadst a letter to my Lord. From whom is it?"

"It is from my mother," said Harry. "She is of noble blood, but fallen in estate. She is a kinswoman of my Lord's, and one time his comrade in arms."

"Sayst so?" said the other. "Then mayhap thy chances are not so ill, after all." Then, after a moment, he added: "My name is Ronald Weasley, and I will stand thy friend in this matter. Get thy letter ready, for my Lord and his Grace of York are within and come forth anon. The Archbishop is on his way to Dalworth, and my Lord escorts him so far as Uppingham. I and those others are to go along. Dost thou know my Lord by sight?"

"Nay," said Harry, "I know him not."

"Then I will tell thee when he cometh. Listen!" said he, as a confused clattering sounded in the court-yard without. "Yonder are the horses now. They come presently. Busk thee with thy letter, friend Harry."

The attendants who passed through the anteroom now came and went more hurriedly, and Harry knew that the Earl must be about to come forth. He had hardly time to untie his pouch, take out the letter, and tie the strings again when the arras at the door-way was thrust suddenly aside, and a tall thin squire of about twenty came forth, said some words to the young men upon the bench, and then withdrew again. Instantly the squires arose and took their station beside the door-way. A sudden hush fell upon all in the room, and the men-at-arms stood in a line against the wall, stiff and erect as though all at once transformed to figures of iron. Once more the arras was drawn back, and in the hush Harry heard voices in the other room.

"My Lord cometh," whispered Weasley in his ear, and Harry felt his heart leap in answer.

The next moment two noblemen came into the anteroom followed by a crowd of gentlemen, squires, and pages. One of the two was a dignitary of the Church; the other Harry instantly singled out as the Earl of Prince.


	5. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

He was a tall man, taller even than Harry's godfather. He had a thin face, deep-set dark eyes, and a hawk nose. His upper lip and chin were clean shaven, but black hair hung well past his shoulders. He was clad in a riding-gown of black velvet that hung a little lower than the knee, trimmed with otter fur and embroidered with silver phoenixes—the crest of the family of Prince.

A light shirt of link mail showed beneath the gown as he walked, and a pair of green dragon skin riding-boots were laced as high as the knee, protecting his malachite hose from mud and dirt. Over his shoulders he wore a collar of enamelled gold, from which hung a magnificent jewelled pendant, and upon his fist he carried a beautiful Iceland falcon.

As Harry stood staring, he suddenly heard Weasley's voice whisper in his ear, "Yon is my Lord; go forward and give him thy letter."

Scarcely knowing what he did, he walked towards the Earl like a machine, his heart pounding within him and a great humming in his ears. As he drew near, the nobleman stopped for a moment and stared at him, and Harry, as in a dream, kneeled, and presented the letter. The Earl took it in his hand, turned it this way and that, looked first at the bearer, then at the packet, and then at the bearer again.

"Who art thou?" said he; "and what is the matter thou wouldst have of me?"

"I am Harry Potter," said the lad, in a low voice; "and I come seeking service with you."

The Earl drew his thick eyebrows quickly together, and shot a keen look at the lad. "Potter?" said he, sharply—"Potter? I know no Potter!"

"The letter will tell you," said Harry. "It is from one once dear to you."

The Earl took the letter, and handing it to a gentleman who stood near, bade him break the seal. "Thou mayst stand," said he to Harry; "needst not kneel there forever." Then, taking the opened parchment again, he glanced first at the face and then at the back, and, seeing its length, looked intrigued. Then he read for an earnest moment or two, skipping from line to line. Presently he folded the letter and thrust it into the pouch at his side. "So it is, your Grace," said he to the lordly prelate, "that we who have luck to rise in the world must ever suffer by being plagued at all times and seasons. Here is one I chanced to know a dozen years ago, who thinks she hath a claim upon me, and saddles me with her son. I must e'en take the lad, too, for the sake of peace and quietness." He glanced around, and seeing Weasley, who had drawn near, beckoned to him. "Take me this fellow," said he, "to the buttery, and see him fed; and then to Sir Alistor Moody, and have his name entered in the castle books. And stay, sirrah," he added; "bid me Sir Moody, if it may be so done, to enter him as a squire-at-arms. Methinks he will be better serving so than in the household, for he appeareth a soothly rough cub for a page."

Harry did look rustic enough, standing clad in frieze in the midst of that gay company, and a murmur of laughter sounded around, though he was too bewildered to fully understand that he was the cause of the merriment. Then some hand drew him back—it was Weasley's—there was a bustle of people passing, and the next minute they were gone, and Harry and old Hagrid and the young squire were left alone in the anteroom.

Weasley looked very sour and put out. "Murrain upon it!" said he; "here is good sport spoiled for me to see thee fed. I wish no ill to thee, friend, but I would thou hadst come this afternoon or to-morrow."

"Methinks I bring trouble and dole to every one," said Harry, somewhat bitterly. "It would have been better had I never come to this place, methinks."

His words and tone softened Weasley a little. "Ne'er mind," said the squire; "it was not thy fault, and is past mending now. So come and fill thy stomach, in Heaven's name."

Perhaps not the least hard part of the whole trying day for Harry was his parting with Hagrid. Weasley and he had accompanied the old gamekeeper to the outer gate, in the archway of which they now stood; for without permit they could go no farther. The old gamekeeper led by the bridle-rein the horse upon which Harry had ridden that morning. His own nag, a vicious brute, was restive to be gone, but Hagrid held him in with tight rein. He reached down, and took Harry's sturdy brown hand in his crooked, knotted grasp.

"Farewell, Harry," he croaked, tremulously, with a watery glimmer in his dark eyes. "Thou wilt not forget me when I am gone?"

"Nay," said Harry; "I will not forget thee."

"Aye, aye," said the old man, looking down at him, and shaking his head slowly from side to side; "w'rry thee not, Harry. Thou learn quick enow. 'Twill be sore toilsome, but thou wilt have val'rous success here, as thy father did'st." As he said this, tears began trickling down into his beard. "Thou art a great tall sturdy fellow now, yet have I held thee on my knee many and many's the time, and dandled thee when thou wert only a little weeny babe. Be still, thou devil's limb!" he suddenly broke off, reining back his restive raw-boned steed, which began again to caper and prance. Harry was not sorry for the interruption; he felt somewhat awkward and abashed at the parting, and at the large man's loud reminiscences, knowing that Weasley's eyes were resting amusedly upon the scene, and that the men-at-arms were looking on. Certainly old Hagrid did look droll as he struggled vainly with his vicious high-necked nag. "Nay, a murrain on thee! an' thou wilt go, go!" cried he at last, with a savage dig of his heels into the animal's ribs, and away they clattered, the led-horse kicking up its heels as a final parting, setting Weasley fairly alaughing. At the bend of the road the old man turned and nodded his head; the next moment he had disappeared around the angle of the wall, and it seemed to Harry, as he stood looking after him, as though the last thread that bound him to his old life had snapped and broken. As he turned he saw that Weasley was looking at him.

"Dost feel downhearted?" said the young squire, curiously.

"Nay," said Harry, brusquely. Nevertheless his throat was tight and dry, and the word came huskily in spite of himself.


End file.
